After a High Court judge in the UK ruled that popular torrent site The Pirate Bay is committing copyright infringement, content providers such as Sony, EMI, and Universal have jumped on the offensive using the new ammunition to stop access to the site in the country. The decision from the courts on whether ISPs will be forced to block the website is expected in June later this year.

The new charges could not have come at a worse time for The Pirate Bay, which still hosts torrent files but was planning to switch entirely to being a repository for magnet links. These are small files can be thought of as distilled hash essence of torrent files and might have helped the site avoid its current problems.